Most people who have had any exposure to the Irish language are aware of this rule. The basic concept of broad and slender vowels comes into play in nearly every aspect of the Irish language.
The basic conceit is this, a,o,u are broad (leathan) vowels and i,eare slender (caol) vowels. The rule mentioned above means that when two vowels are separated by consonants in a word, oftentimes they have to match. Personally this helped immensely when I was was first figuring out spelling.
See how this plays out in a word like Comhlacht (company; in the commercial sense). Oandaare both broad so the word follows the rule.
Other words include, páirceáil (to park), cailín (girl), foclóír (dictionary), seoinín (shoneen), báisteach (rain), ríomhaire (computer), etc.
But all good rules have their exceptions as we see in words like bunreacht (constitution; in a legal sense) and ospidéal (hospital)
There are many musicians releasing songs in Irish at the minute. Music is a great way to get exposure to the language one can listen to it independent of understanding the lyrics.
Kneecap: A rap duo from Belfast. Not very popular among the purists. Let’s just say that the subject matter tends to be outside the range of traditional forms of learning. Loads of new vocab you won’t get anywhere else. I really enjoy their stuff. Done in a way that’s closer to the actual speech patterns of speakers than the caighdeán. My favourite song of theirs is C.E.A.R.T.A.
IMLÉ: More of a collective than a band. They hop around between genres depending on who’s in the song. Some are native speakers, some aren’t. Motherfoclóir had two of them on for an interview. My favourite songs are Peacach and Go Deo, Go Deo.
Seo Linn: Anyone who’s seen a Coláiste Lurgan video from the early days probably knows these guys. Used to be schoolteachers. For a long time they did translations of pop songs but now have their own bilingual album. I haven’t actually listened to much of them but they did a good cover of Óró. Their music sounds a lot like stuff from boybands to me.
Thatchers of the Acropolis: They’ve only two songs on Spotify but they’re quite good. Load of spoken word mixed with music. Hard to describe. Like poems over a strong beat and melody. It’s like they’re remixing what you expect from Irish language music. Experimental?
Bruadar: Really nice chill music. I’m a fan of their song Géill Slí about public transport. Some brass and a male lead singer. Two songs on Spotify so far. Whimsical lyrics.
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Much more in the line of traditional stuff. Sean Nós and all that jazz. She has a nice voice.
Síle Denvir: She appears on a couple of Irish language albums and sang a bunch of songs by Pádraig Pearse in her album Caithréim. He was kind of a big deal in Irish history and the revival of the language. Founded the first bilingual school. His stuff is nice enough if you like stuff from the early 20th century… and uillinn pipes.
Rís Ceol: A band which is a bit more old school? They seem to do some satire stuff as well. They’re not on Spotify but their album is out and called ‘Aon Seans ar Riot?’. Which might give you an idea of their vibe.
Árchú: A bit more weird. Some spoken word stuff as well. This is how they describe themselves ‘Ceol iar-rac leictreo-acústach’. Not much music available online yet from what I can see.
The Gloaming: Again more traditional. A bit orchestra in style. Their songs often exceed 7 minutes in length. I listen to The Pilgrim’s Song often. Nice trad stuff.
Another way to learn Irish is to read articles and pick up vocab that way. One thing to keep in mind for exams tho is that the way a native speaker might write is different from what an examiner might want see. Irish in particular is very loanword friendly.
Tuairisc - a news site of sorts. There tends to be a lot of articles about Irish and its status by default of who is doing the writing.
Nós - this is a bit more of a fun site. A site for articles but the subject matter is a bit more frivolous than tuairisc. This is the place to go if you want the forbidden vocab of Irish
RTÉ - The national broadcaster has a Gaeilge section on their website where you can find news articles through Irish.
Various Blogs - Indigenous Tweets has a section on their blog dedicated solely to blogs that write as Gaeilge. http://indigenoustweets.com/blogs/ga/
#OTD in 1932 – Death of Augusta Persse, better known as Lady Augusta Gregory, Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre director; also a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
#OTD in 1932 – Death of Augusta Persse, better known as Lady Augusta Gregory, Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre director; also a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre director; also a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. George Bernard Shaw once described Lady Augusta Gregory as “the greatest living Irishwoman”. Lady Gregory, also known as Isabella Augusta, was born on 15 March 1852, in Roxborough, Co Galway. She married Sir William Henry Gregory in 1880. Sir Gregory owned an estate at Coole Park near…
Because of Brexit, all companies which only operate ATMs inside the EU have now replaced the UK’s Union Jack with the Irish tricolour for the English language option.
Ye killed our language lads, so now we’ve kidnapped yours.
€10million and an Irish Language Act in the North within 48hrs, or Béarla gets it
lads we need our own tumblrverse tag for Irish, Personally I nominate Gaelblr as our lovely little sub-section of langblr. Cá bhfuil mo chairde Gaelacha?? An bhfuil cad agam dul go dtí an leithreas??
This contraption monitors the sounds that Irish speakers make when they pronounce consonants. It’s for a study by linguists from the University of California-Santa Cruz and University College, Dublin– and it’s part of the global love for the Irish language.
100 years ago this month, Irish rebels staged the Easter Rising– the armed insurrection that eventually led to independence from Britain. Since then, the Irish language has been taught in all schools and heavily supported by the government. For decades, it seemed that language wouldn’t survive. But things have been looking up recently, as younger people have been more open to taking it up. And even singing in the language.
The latest episode of the World in Words podcast is all about the past, present and future of the Irish language.
Image description: a series of tumblr messages reading:
“Hello! I’m Marta and I’m a student of 2nd year Celtic Studies in Poland :)
I’m a part of a student project that is investigating the existence of Welsh-language fanfiction/fandom spaces and what are its members’ relations with the Welsh language.
We are currently conducting surveys on Welsh language fanfiction readers and we need to have a pilot survey to make sure it all runs smoothly. However, there are very few Welsh language fanfiction readers already, and we cannot count in the respondents from the pilot to our final study, for the sake of research.
Which is why we are looking to run the pilot on Irish-language fanfiction readers, and I hope you would be interested, as I’ve seen you post about Irish fic :)
It should take a maximum of 20 minutes, but most likely less. The questions are anonymous and mostly concern your relationship with fanfiction and language. Would you be willing to take part?”
End description.]
Marta reached out to me recently about their survey which sounds fascinating. So if any of you feel that you fit what they are looking for, please contact @estullefavric as soon as possible.
I find myself running into interesting Irish words very frequently, and one I found recently I quite liked was plobaireacht, meaning “blubbering, spluttering or babbling, particularly trying to speak, but being unable to while crying.”
I couldn’t come up with much of an etymology, but this looks a lot like another word piobaireachd,(which is a Scottish Gaelic term that has also been adopted into English), meaning “bagpipe music.” I don’t think the two are related in the slightest, but I suppose bagpipes might also make you difficult to understand whilst trying to speak.
